White ! – Unlock a special attack/ability

Magenta 1 – Skill with one-handed gunpowder weapons

Blue 2 – Skill with two-handed gunpowder weapons

Orange R – Reload speed

Blue + – Increase gunpowder weapon range

Silver S – Riding speed

Grey G – Skill with gunpowder weapons when riding in Riding tree; skill with ship-mounted guns in Navigation tree for you + crew under you

Red W – Accuracy with hand-held weapons when riding

Pale Red S – Accuracy with slashing weapons when riding

Brown H – Accuracy with heavy weapons when riding

Blue C – Skill at controlling your hose

Cyan T – Reduced turning circle when riding

Blue ~ – Skill at crossing rivers when mounted

Brown D – Reduced chance of being dismounted when riding

Light Green R – Increased archery weapon reload speed when mounted

Green M – Increased map vision range

Red ( – Increased ship-to-ship combat skill for you + crew under you

Light Grey L – Combat bonus vs legal vessels

Purple P – Combat bonus vs pirate vessels

Brown R – Efficiency of ship repair

Cyan S – Increased sailing speed

Yellow F – Reduced food consumption on vessels for you + crew under you

Blue % – Reduced damage from storms

Additionally, I’ve now implemented a rather nice little ‘key’ system that follows you around, and tells you what each skill does at the bottom of the screen. The top line of the skills screen will tell you what tree you’re on; I just haven’t implemented it yet. The key follows you around and gives you a brief description of the skill, whilst the lines below tell you your current EXP, how much you need to unlock that skill, and a more detailed description of the skill.

Now let’s say a little on special abilities. The ‘Rifleman’ class is currently down to gain a 25% boost to gunpowder weapon accuracy for 10 turns after each kill. I think this suits the rifleman’s ability as a front-line unit that has to cut through large numbers of foes, and should also (I hope) produce some emergent drama from last stands and the like! However, producing special abilities for the ‘Rider’ class and the ‘Sailor’ class are proving trickier, though I have some ideas.

For the Rider, I’d like it to be an ability focusing on routing and cavalry charges, but I’m pondering how to implement it. I considered something like a boost to damage the further from your commander you are; if you’re right at the back of the enemy force, you’ll actually be much more effective than if you were on the frontline. That’s one possibility. I also considered something involving a negative morale modifier for foes you attack – however, if I decide that other units should give negative modifiers to foes, maybe that shouldn’t be unique to the Rider. I’m currently undecided on which of these, if either, to go with.

For the Sailor, the Navigation tree and therefore its specialty is partly military, and partly exploratory. Which is to say, I think it will be a good class if you want to play a game focused on exploration (like the Quester class) but also if you want to play a particular kind of military game. Just like the Spy has full knowledge from intelligence, and the Quester full knowledge of artefacts, I’m debating giving the Sailor “full knowledge of maps”. This would potentially mean that maps might normally be poorly drawn, or difficult to navigate to, or have cities located in the wrong areas, but if the player is the Sailor class then maps are always fully accurate (or the player can always make sense of the map; one or the other). How useful this would be depends I suppose on the mechanics of maps in the game.

For all three of those special abilities (and, indeed, any of the others) I’d like all the feedback I can get. I want each to emphasize very different abilities, but still obviously be reasonably balanced. Naturally some classes will have bigger bonuses, and that’s fine – it’s not a competitive game so classes can be unbalanced a little to make some easier or harder. With that said, I want them all to be reasonably similar, but more importantly to all have interesting abilities.

5 thoughts on “Medieval Skill Trees 3/?”

Quick question about the ‘Rifleman’ class. How exactly will this class function in actual battle.

For example after a set number of shots fire will my rifleman have to leave battle to reload his/her ammo and/or be vulnurable to attacks.

Will there be different wepon types which have different ammo capacity or ammo types.
Since you mention a bit of relationship between classes being easier to use then others or some might be more complex to use then the other classes this seems like an interesting question to ask.

Another question is related to the boost the Rifleman receive, will there be after effects such heavy fatigue after a fight due to the overwelm extra focus the Rifleman had to maintain during the set engagement.

Well back in the day instead of leaving the battlefield the men would stand (Or kneel, depending on the unit) there while they reloaded their rifles and/or muskets. This could be a good balance in the game where a rifleman may be more accurate they take longer to reload and have a higher chance of getting harmed themselves. As where another gun user like a musketeer could reload faster yet they would be less accurate.

@ Blue-demon: I’m not sure if you’ll be able to load more than one shot in at once via clip/magazine etc, or whether we’ll have gunpowder weapons where each shot must be stuffed in. Maybe both, but I expect I’ll settle on just one. Yes, definitely – just as, for instance, “heavy weapons” have various types (axes, battleaxes, flails, maces, etc), I’m going to have a variety of gunpowder weapons. Working on specifics at the moment. Ammo types – interesting. Any suggestions for what they could be?

Yes, but not specific to the Rifleman; if your stamina reaches 0, you go into willpower, and if your “Willpower Boost” (this may be renamed) reaches 0, then you will rapidly suffer major fatigue effects. Don’t know if the Rifleman will have its own addition, but it’s possible if balance demands it!

@ Hungry_Dwarf: very interesting. As I say, I’m torn about whether I want to make accuracy a balancing factor (though I might make it a mild one), but one interesting idea could be that for both bow weapons and gunpowder weapons, the longer you/NPC take to aim, the greater your accuracy. That could be VERY interesting, actually. In fact, even as I type it, I like that idea enough to try coding it in and see how it works. Thanks for the suggestion! : )

Hmm, that’s an interesting point – you shouldn’t be able to hold it forever, there should both be a limit to gained accuracy, and maybe as you said, start to lose extra stamina for holding it beyond a certain time…